Grambling falls to No. 1 Purdue

Big Ten Player of the Year Zach Edey's 30 points, 21 rebounds, and 3 blocks were too much for No. 16 Grambling State (21-15) to overcome Friday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament against No. 1 Purdue (30-4), with the Boilermakers taking the win 78-50.

The Tigers' historic season, making their first NCAA Tournament in school history and winning over 20 games in consecutive seasons for the first time ever, may have come to an end at the hands of the Big 10 regular season champions, but head coach Donte Jackson was proud of his team's effort in trying to slay a tournament giant.

And he believes Friday's finish will serve as another unprecedented marker in the program's steady climb. 

In the five seasons combined prior to Donte Jackson taking over the program, GSU went 30-120, including a winless 0-28 mark in 2012-13. Now, in Jackson's seventh season, he's delivered GSU its first SWAC Tournament championship, first trip to the NCAA Tournament, and the school’s first NCAA Tournament win after a First Four win over Montana State on Wednesday.

"I let them know there's nothing they have to hang their heads about. This has been a great season for us. The unfortunate part of this is there's only going to be one team happy at the end and that's going to be the national champions. We hope we just lost to the national champions tonight. This has been a historic year. Won the SWAC regular season title. Won the SWAC Tournament title. Won a First Four play-in game. For a low to mid-major, that's all you can ask for."

GSU gave Purdue its best punch in the first half, cutting the deficit to as close as four in stretches with Edey on the bench, but Purdue began to light up from three (5-11 in the first half) and find its way to the free-throw line to stay ahead whenever the Tigers attempted a run. Purdue got 16 points and 12 rebounds from their 7-4 big man by halftime to give itself a nine-point lead at 36-27.

Stopping Edey was part of GSU's gameplan, but it proved to be hard to execute as he drew five fouls in the first seven minutes, along with helping Purdue earn a 24-13 rebound advantage in the first half, including 12-1 on the offensive glass.

The close deficit didn't last long as the second half began, with Purdue exploding ahead 44-31 with 17:00 to go in the ballgame. Three minutes later, it was Purdue 54-33 as GSU came out of halftime 3-15 from the field and Edey continuing his dominance inside.

The Tigers went without points for over five minutes in the second half and by the time the ball found the hoop again it was too late. Edey exited with more rebounds (21) than GSU (18) with 6:35 left as Purdue remained well in control to close out its win.

Purdue won the rebounding battle 48-23 and held GSU to 36.4 percent shooting from the field.

Tra'Michael Moton led GSU with 21 points and 4 rebounds, while Kintavious Dozier had 16 points to round out the Tigers in double figures.

The duo both jokingly remarked postgame they had never faced anyone like Edey before and had no shame in losing to a caliber of player like that.

"I don't think anybody's seen anything like Zach Edey. What they say he is on paper, he's exactly that," Dozier said.

As the tournament continues on, discussion has grown over whether the field of 64 should expand or instead replace automatic qualifiers from smaller schools, like a GSU in the SWAC, with more Power-Six teams.

When asked postgame how he'd feel if that were to occur, leaving GSU with even less wiggle room to get to opportunites like Friday, Jackson made his position clear.

“I think that’s a tough situation because I think you take the beauty of the NCAA Tournament out. Look at last year with FDU," Jackson said. "If you replace some of the smaller schools, then you kind of lose that Cinderella story. I look at the NIT. You replace a lot of the regular season title holders and then you replace them with teams that don’t really have great records or didn’t have a great season. And you’ve got teams opting out, opting not to play. At the end of the day, reward the guys that work for it and give our student athletes something to look forward to, because the reality is the big schools get a lot to look forward to.”